Chapter Two
Two days later, Audrey followed Monica down a narrow hallway of the institute, a worn duffel bag slung over her shoulder.
The building smelled faintly of fresh paint, and the walls were lined with framed photographs of smiling women.
Audrey didn’t look too closely at them. She kept her eyes on Monica’s back, noticing how her friend’s shoulders seemed tense underneath her cardigan.
Monica stopped at a door near the end of the hall, pulled a key from her pocket, and unlocked it. She pushed the door open and stepped aside to let Audrey through.
“Usually, two or four tributes share a room,” she said. “But I pulled some strings. You have this one to yourself, with your own bathroom.”
Audrey took in the space. It was small and modest, with a single bed covered in plain white sheets, a wooden dresser with a mirror mounted above it, and a chair tucked into a corner.
A door on the far wall led to what she assumed was the bathroom.
The window had thin curtains that let in the afternoon light, and the floor was clean and bare.
She set her bag on the bed.
“It’s perfect.”
Monica closed the door and leaned against it with her arms crossed over her chest. She watched as Audrey unzipped her duffel and started pulling out clothes, setting them in neat piles on the bed.
Neither of them spoke.
Until Audrey pulled out the long-range radio and set it aside. Then came a collection of knives in leather sheaths, which she laid out one by one. She retrieved two power banks from the bottom of the bag and plugged them into the nearest outlet.
Monica’s eyebrows rose.
Audrey reached back into the bag and pulled out a handgun. She set it on the dresser.
“Do you really think you’re going to need all that?” the institute manager asked.
“I’m not going anywhere without my weapons. I’d feel exposed.”
“Even armed to the teeth, it’s nearly impossible for one person to take down an orc alone. You know that.”
“I do know that.” Audrey looked up at her. “That’s why the Tusk Hunters always attack in groups.”
Monica pushed off from the door and crossed the room. She picked up one of the knives, turning it over in her hands, examining the blade and the worn leather of the sheath. After a moment, she set it back down on the bed.
“What good will human weapons do against orc blades?” she asked. “Their weapons drip with magic. One cut and you’re paralyzed, poisoned, dead before you hit the ground.”
“I know,” Audrey said. “Believe me, I know exactly what their weapons can do. It makes them even harder to kill.” She paused, her hand resting on the pile of clothes she’d just set down.
“But I won’t use these unless I absolutely have to.
I just need to have them. I need to know they’re within reach if something goes wrong. ”
Monica studied her for a long moment.
“I understand. But hide them well. If another tribute sees any of this, they’ll ask questions you don’t want to answer.”
“I will.”
Monica moved to the bed and sat on the edge of it. Something in her posture shifted. She suddenly looked tired, older than her fifty-something years.
Audrey sat beside her.
“Are you okay?”
The woman let out a breath that was almost a laugh. There was no humor in it.
“I hate this job. I hate everything about it.”
Monica had been running this institute for ten years. She’d built it into one of the most respected facilities in the region, a place where tributes were treated with dignity instead of being shuffled through like cattle.
“You’ve been here a long time.”
“I have.” Monica stared at the wall, her eyes distant.
“I took this position because someone had to do it right. Most institute managers see the tributes as commodities, as something to trade for peace. They don’t care about the women, not really.
They care about quotas and keeping the orcs satisfied.
” She shook her head. “I wanted to make sure the women who came through here were treated like people. I wanted to give them real support, real training, a chance to understand what they were walking into.”
“You’ve done that,” Audrey said. “You’ve done more for these women than you know.”
“Maybe. But it doesn’t change what this place is. It doesn’t change what I’m a part of.”
She stood abruptly, smoothing down her cardigan as if she could smooth away the conversation along with the wrinkles.
“I should let you settle in.”
She walked toward the door, then stopped with her hand on the knob.
“You need to attend the classes. The ones about orcs and their culture, the history lessons, all of it.”
“I know everything there is to know about orcs,” Audrey said. “I’ve been studying them for years. I’ve tracked them, watched them, learned their habits and their weaknesses. There’s nothing some institute teacher can tell me that I don’t already know.”
“It doesn’t matter. You need to blend in.
You need to give the other tributes the impression that you’re one of them, that you’re here for the same reasons they are.
If you stand out as someone who already knows too much, it could raise suspicions.
People will wonder why you’re really here, and they’ll start asking questions. ”
Audrey wanted to argue, but she knew Monica was right. She let out a slow breath and nodded.
“Fine.”
“Good. Be careful, Audrey. Please.”
Then she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her.
Audrey sat alone in the silence for a few minutes, staring at the weapons spread across the bed.
Then she got to work hiding them. The knives went into the dresser, tucked under folded clothes.
The gun went into the back of the bathroom cabinet, behind a stack of towels.
The radio, she hid in the bottom drawer, wrapped in a sweater.
When everything was concealed, she stripped off her clothes and stepped into the tiny bathroom.
The shower was small, barely big enough to turn around in, but the water was hot and the pressure strong.
She stood under the spray and let it pound against her shoulders, washing away the tension that had knotted itself into her muscles over the past week.
She stayed in the shower longer than she needed to, letting the steam fill the bathroom until the mirror was completely fogged over.
When she finally turned off the water and stepped out, she wiped a hand across the glass and stared at her reflection.
Her red hair hung wet and dark around her face, dripping onto her shoulders.
She dried off and went back into the bedroom, where she rifled through her clothes until she found a dress.
It was a flowy thing, pale blue with thin straps.
Monica had told her to bring dresses, and Audrey had packed the few she had but hadn’t worn in years.
She pulled it on over her head and smoothed it down, then looked at herself in the mirror above the dresser.
The fabric felt strange against her skin, too light and too revealing.
She felt awkward and exposed, like she was wearing a costume that didn’t fit.
But she’d get used to it. She had to.
The classroom was on the first floor, a large room with rows of chairs facing a whiteboard at the front.
When Audrey walked in, about ten other women were already seated, scattered throughout the room in small clusters, or sitting alone.
A middle-aged woman stood at the whiteboard, writing something in neat block letters.
Audrey took a seat in the back row, as far from the others as she could get without drawing attention to herself. She kept her eyes down and tried to make herself small.
The other women were young, most of them around her age or a few years younger.
Only one looked like she might be in her thirties, a woman with dark hair pulled back in a tight ponytail who sat near the front, with her hands folded in her lap.
None of them seemed enthusiastic about being here.
They were quiet, their faces closed off.
Audrey’s gaze landed on a woman sitting two rows ahead of her, a blonde with her hair hanging loose around her face. There were old bruises on her neck, faded to yellow and green but still visible. The kind that said someone had wrapped their fingers around her throat. More than once.
She looked away. She understood why these women were here. Not because they wanted to be orc brides. But because the lives they were leaving behind were worse than the unknown future waiting for them.
The teacher turned and cleared her throat.
“Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Mrs. Patterson, and I’ll be guiding you through the history and culture curriculum during your time here.”
Her voice was flat and practiced, the voice of someone who had given this same speech dozens of times before. She launched into the lesson without preamble, writing dates on the board as she spoke.
Audrey stared at the desk in front of her and tried to tune out the words. It was impossible.
Mrs. Patterson talked about how the portals had opened sixteen years ago, ripping holes in the fabric of reality and spilling orc hordes into the human world.
She talked about the confusion of those first days, when no one understood what was happening, or where these creatures had come from.
She described the battles that followed, the territories lost, the cities overrun.
Audrey’s hands clenched into fists under the desk.
“The war lasted for two years,” Mrs. Patterson continued, her marker squeaking against the whiteboard.
“During that time, significant portions of the western and central United States came under orc control. The human military fought back, of course, but the orcs possessed magic that gave them a considerable advantage. Their weapons were enchanted, capable of paralyzing or poisoning with a single cut. Human casualties were... substantial.”
Substantial. Audrey felt her jaw tighten. That was one word for it.
Another word was massacre.
Another one was slaughter.
“Eventually, both sides reached an impasse,” Mrs. Patterson said.
“The humans couldn’t drive the orcs back, and the orcs couldn’t fully conquer the human territories.
A peace agreement was negotiated. The orcs would keep the lands they had claimed, and in exchange for an end to hostilities, humans agreed to establish the tribute system. ”
The tribute system. Audrey wanted to laugh, but there was nothing funny about it. The tribute system meant human women offering themselves as brides. It meant bearing their children, warming their beds, living among the creatures who had torn through human civilization without mercy or remorse.
Mrs. Patterson kept talking, her voice droning on about cultural exchange and coexistence, and the importance of understanding orc customs. Audrey stopped listening. She knew the truth. She knew what the history books and institute teachers would never say out loud.
The orcs had nearly destroyed the United States.
They had torn through towns and cities, killing everyone who stood in their way, burning homes, businesses, and schools.
They had stolen land, whole towns and regions, and claimed them as their own.
They had murdered families, ripped children from their parents, and left behind nothing but blood and ash.
And when humans finally begged for peace, broken, desperate, and out of options, the orcs had demanded brides. Human women to ensure the orcs had a future in this world they had invaded.
Audrey’s fingernails dug into her palms. Her heart was pounding, and she could feel the rage building in her chest, hot and suffocating.
She wanted to stand up and scream at Mrs. Patterson, tell her that the history she was teaching was sanitized garbage designed to make these women feel better about what they were walking into.
But she couldn’t do that. She had to sit here and pretend to be one of them.
She thought about what she actually knew about orcs, the truths that no one in this room wanted to hear.
They were ruthless beasts. They had no honor, no mercy, and no humanity. They took what they wanted and killed anyone who tried to stop them. They had ripped her family apart when she was ten years old and would’ve done the same to her had she not been hiding.
And now she was going to walk into one of their hordes, smile at their captain, and pretend to be exactly what he wanted.
So she could finally get her revenge.